Soccer at Binghampton Park with the Refugee Empowerment Program (REP)

Play Where You Stay is partnering up with the Refugee Empowerment Program (REP) to provide soccer programming from September, 2022 until November, 2023 for their children ages 5-11 at Binghampton Park (2606 Everett Memphis, Tennessee) at no cost to the families. This project would provide soccer to 200 children for four days per week for a total of around 100 practices and 10 games.

Providing excellent soccer training to children requires many resources from families — reliable transportation, flexible work hours, and money. Play Where You Stay eliminates these barriers to bring wide-scale exposure of soccer to diverse communities while developing the life skills of young soccer players. Nationally, 21% of all children live in families with income below the federal poverty threshold. The average poverty rate for children living in the 13 census tracts we serve is 49%. In census tract 112 alone, where we serve the children of Klondike Smokey City, the child poverty rate is 79%. Other census tracts we work in include tract 27 with 51% of children living below poverty, tract 50 with 75% of children living below poverty, and tract 27 with 51% of children below the poverty line.

Our soccer practices will run from September, 2022 until November, 2023. Play Where You Stay will provide high-quality soccer coaching and soccer equipment for all the boys and girls ages 5-11 in a partnership with the Refugee Empowerment Program. In addition to that, we will purchase jerseys for the players for Game Days on Fridays.

In Memphis, excellent soccer training currently requires resources — flexible work hours, transportation, and dollars. Yet soccer is an easy game for beginners; it has simple rules and requires only a ball. Play Where You Stay aims to bring wide-scale exposure of soccer to different communities while developing young soccer players. Globally, soccer is played in both rural and urban areas by youth across the socioeconomic spectrum. In most countries, all that’s needed to play soccer is a ball and some open space. Middle and high-income families in the United States have built barriers to soccer participation by concentrating soccer facilities in the suburbs, requiring expensive specialized equipment to play, and charging high fees to join teams.